


Weapons Development

by Sanguinifex (Eros_Scribens)



Series: ZevWarden Week 2017 [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Bogus Initialisms, Gratuitous Real-World Namedropping, Gratuitous Self-Referential In-Jokes, I apologize to the tag wranglers, M/M, ZevWarden Week, mentions of Tentacles, zevwarden week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 21:51:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11700573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eros_Scribens/pseuds/Sanguinifex
Summary: Alim Surana is a bioweapons researcher for W.A.R.D.E.N. and kind of a nerd. Zevran Arainai is a hitman who uses the weapons Surana develops. They discover they have more in common than they thought at first.For ZevWarden Week 2017, Day 4: AU Day!





	Weapons Development

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what W.A.R.D.E.N. stands for. I'm not even going to try. Couldn't resist, though.

Everyone has heard of Arainai before, but the first time Surana meets him, it is to consult on the field ergonomics of a new bioweapon.

“The delivery system needs to be easily used, but also easily concealed, wouldn’t you say?” Arainai is a surprisingly small man, dark-skinned and wiry, with blond hair that no one believes is natural until they read his file. His way of speaking is odd, but well documented; almost always phrased as a question, even when it carries the weight of an order.

“So it should look like an everyday personal object?” asks Surana, falling into the other’s cadence—though this is a genuine question. It is safer not to assume anything, with a man like Arainai. Also, the structural engineer, the third man in the room, might say that he was being an idiot. “I was thinking, maybe have the actual delivery system work somewhat like an Epi-Pen. Press and click to inject the weapon. Perhaps disguise it as a lighter? It would be a rather large lighter, but passable. The internal system would not look suspicious in that context, if you go through a security scan.”

“Hmmm. Now don’t you think it should have a safety latch, so I do not accidentally kill myself by putting this in my pocket? Because that would be very sad indeed.”

The consult finishes a couple hours later. The structural engineer 3D-prints a prototype, having assembled the component parts with a 3D modeling program, and Arainai tests it and pronounces it “a bit draggy on the action, but you will fix that in production development, no?”

They certainly will. This particular mechanism is being created because Surana’s newest bioweapon is incompatible with existing models—it eats through the plastic, and most metals—but truth be told, it is time for an upgrade. Most foreign intelligence agencies and many of the better security teams know what their old models look like. The new “zippy,” which is definitely a joke on “Zippo,” be able to inject anything from Surana’s new “Blight Mark V” to ricin to solutions of peanut protein, as the need may be. They are also going to develop a version that looks like a tube of lipstick or a keyfob, for missions at non-smoking events. The structural engineer suggested an asthma inhaler, but they dismissed that as too likely to place a security burden on actual asthmatics. Besides, Surana is pretty sure that that is a Robin Cook novel. Or maybe it’s Dean Koontz; he doesn’t remember. The idea of hiding ricin in an inhaler was the only memorable part of it. Not that it would work very well; an aerosol that tiny does not get very far. A few security teams considered banning inhalers, having read the book; they soon realized this was likely to have a higher casualty rate than allowing them. For more ordinary circumstances than heads of state, mass murders were much more likely to be due to guns or bombs anyway.

Arainai leaves, but the memory of the man stays with Surana. Several weeks later, he watches the news and sees a story about an anti-government militia leader dying in circumstances described as “a bizarre drug overdose” but what clearly point to the Blight Mark V, if one knows about it. He asks about it, the next day, and is told that yes, that was his bioweapon, and yes, it was Arainai, and that the rest of the details are irrelevant to what he needs to know. But his commanding officer offhandedly mentions that such an assignment was “a good fit, with his background,” and Surana is intrigued enough to check out Arainai’s file—what his clearance allows him to access of it.

Arainai’s mother was an immigrant; she had been engaged to a man who could grant her legal resident status, but he had died unexpectedly before their marriage could be finalized. Shortly thereafter, and before Arainai was born, her visa expired, and she became an undocumented immigrant. Unable to find legal work, she became caught up in sex trafficking, despite her pregnancy—there is an arrest record in the file, with the mugshot showing her to be visibly pregnant; she was bailed out and then skipped town—and died of a postpartum infection, according to the autopsy report. Her body was found in a Dumpster, but no one was ever arrested because her death was due to natural causes.

There is no official record of Zevran Arainai’s birth. According to Arainai’s own statement, in his file, he remembers growing up in the trafficking ring for several years. He claims not to know whether he himself was trafficked, though it seems likely. At some point between the ages of five and eight (in his statement, he estimates this by the state of his deciduous teeth at the time), he was sold to a militaristic religious cult (the name is redacted), and was trained as a child soldier. God had paid the price for his “salvation,” he was told, and now he would fight for God’s army. It is unclear whether he actually believed this or was simply smart enough to follow orders. In any case, his current religious beliefs are listed as Christian-leaning agnostic.

When Arainai was seventeen, the cult was taken down by W.A.R.D.E.N. Most of its child soldiers were placed in foster care or reform schools. Arainai knew his own last name, but there was no legal record of his existence prior to the cult sting. DNA testing revealed who his mother was, and sure enough, she had been engaged to a man named Arainai. Zevran himself, however, was entirely undocumented. Legally, he did not exist. Only as “Baby Doe,” a footnote to his mother’s case, and that had been speculative. His date of birth had however been narrowed down to a range of a few days, per that autopsy report, so he was also only a couple months from the age of majority.

W.A.R.D.E.N. was intrigued by the idea of an operative who would truly have no traceable past. The only record of his existence, the cult sting, was already classified, so it was a simple matter of having that doctored to erase his role in that. Furthermore, he had been trained quite well by the cult, making him ideal for a future career in physical intervention. Arainai had finished his education entirely off of any records that could ever be requested via FOIA during his lifetime, tutored exclusively by W.A.R.D.E.N. employees. He was sent on his first hit at the age of twenty-three and performed quite swimmingly, though most of his handlers noted that he tended to flout minor regulations—most often involving dress code or safety equipment.

He also has mild generalized joint hypermobility beyond what could be explained by his training regimen. It seems like an irrelevant detail, but it is one of the few things beyond his general life history that is not redacted. Surana is science division; perhaps that is why his clearance lets him see Arainai’s medical info. He is not actually Arainai’s doctor, so he skims over all the rest of that except for allergies, which are always good to know. He has a mild allergy to black mold, and nothing else.

All details of his missions are redacted, except for the barest-bones info on his latest one, with the Blight Mark V. Name of target, kill method, date, time, mission status. Surana is pretty sure he would not even be able to see that if he were not on the team that created it. Apart from that, all he knows is that Arainai has not been assigned another mission yet—hardly surprising; it has only been a couple days. The list goes on for pages and pages; despite the redaction, he can tell from the format that there are several dozen targets.

Arainai is a deadly ghost. He is whatever he is supposed to be for a mission, and then he disappears again. Apart from W.A.R.D.E.N.’s internal documents, the only record of his existence is if he happens to walk past a traffic camera, and he wears hats pulled low at all times outside and hair that covers his ears.

Surana wonders what the man is like, beyond the steel and mystery that W.A.R.D.E.N. has built up around him. He does not know why he cares so much to find out more about this odd man whom he met for a few hours once, but he does know that he would like to.

He sees Arainai a few days later, when the man decides to tell him about his new tech’s field performance.

“It was quite easy,” Arainai admits, smiling. He has a tattoo on his cheek; it is only visible when he throws his head back like that. Who let him get a tattoo? That is a terrible decision for an agent. Maybe it is from his time with that cult. However, Surana knows that there are special makeup sprays that feel like skin once dried, last for several weeks, and can only be removed by a special cleanser. They are usually used to cover up scars, but they could work for Arainai as well. Arainai is still talking, and Surana realizes that he is staring at him.

“I offered him a light, and then clapped him on the back when I was done, with the hand holding the lighter. Just like that. You even got it to work like a real lighter! Very useful, no?”

“That was mostly Structural,” says Surana, still staring at that tattoo, or rather trying not to. He suddenly realizes what his fascination is. Oh no. This man is much too dangerous. He is a hitman. His job is killing. There is no way it could be safe for him to be with this man.

He realizes that a large part of his brain does not even care.

“I really like how it has a two-step activation, that is quite strategically good. A prion, but only activated by a catalyst, which is not toxic in itself. It is practically undetectable! So, do you have any other interesting poisons in the works?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. I do. Do you want to get coffee and talk about it?” Surana curses himself. That was terrible. He has not been that un-smooth since college. Then again, Grinder usually does not care about this dance of semi-formal preliminaries. In fact, although he is bisexual, Surana has slept with mostly men because of that. Romance and dating feel rather contrived, and it is much easier to admit honest lust in spaces that welcome that admission. Faced with that desire but for a person he has only met in real life? Surana is years out of practice.

(He realizes that Arainai probably does not have a smartphone, what with not legally existing and all. He himself has separate ones for work and…well, mostly Grinder, and the one Yahoo email he uses to sign up for things that he does not want his legal identity attached to. W.A.R.D.E.N. knows about it, of course, but the purpose is to keep everybody else from finding out he works for W.A.R.D.E.N.)

Arainai raises his eyebrows just for a fraction of a second, then smiles again in a way that is even more attractive and makes Surana feel uncomfortably aware of his own nipples. “I would be delighted,” he says. “And do call me Zevran.”

“Uh…and call me Alim, then.”

Surana is so fucked.

The W.A.R.D.E.N. campus is one of the few places in the world where Starbucks staff are required to have security clearances. Surana orders his usual iced Americano, while Arai…Zevran gets a venti smores frappucino with whip and crushed caramel candy bits. As they sit across from each other at the food court table, Surana eyes Zevran’s drink enviously. Damn field operatives and their active lifestyles. But really, he’s looking at the drink because he’s a bit nervous about looking at Zevran’s face—at least while maintaining any kind of coherence. Right. Experimental poisons that Zevran is eventually going to be working with. They can talk about that.

“So you liked the dual activation aspect, you said?”

“Mm-hm; it’s a lot safer and harder to detect that way. I would actually prefer to have the components separated, for safety. Harder to administer, in some ways, but then one could put one agent into, say, a meal consumed by a large group of people, while delivering the other only to the target, no?”

“Definitely.” Yes, adverbs are a thing he can manage.

“Or perhaps something that reacts with completely ordinary compounds that the target habitually has contact with, but is harmless on its own. Like, I don’t know, violin rosin. One of my targets was a church violinist, once. Of course, he was also the head of a child sex ring that was funding arms dealers. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Or maybe even to a particular brand of toothpaste? Would that even work?”

“I don’t know,” says Surana. “I can work on it. The problem is that you have to find a chemical that bonds or reacts with something in the target substance to make a toxin, without previously being toxic itself, or reactive to something you don’t want it to be.” He stirs his drink a bit, moving the ice cubes around. “Do they always send you on missions that remind you of your past?” he blurts out. “I’m sorry—I read your file. Basic history and all. I probably shouldn’t have.”

“I mean, I read yours, if that makes you feel better? So I know a little—foster system, science magnet school that you applied to on your own, MIT, and then you joined W.A.R.D.E.N. because it offered you loan forgiveness. That does not actually tell very much about you.”

“I’m not sure what I expected. …For the record, uh, I like cats but I actually have a dog, and my favorite color is blue?”

“I have no pets, my favorite animal is ravens, and I collect little gold and silver figurines.”

“Why take missions that would remind you of being raised like _that_ , though? I mean, to each their own, but I mean, half the reason I work for W.A.R.D.E.N. and not Teach For America is because I couldn’t stand the thought of looking at a child and seeing a childhood like my own, and not being able to do really anything about it. I mean, I turned out alright, but there are many things I try not to remember.”

“From my handler’s and superiors’ perspective—I know my way around those kinds of social milieus better than any other field operative we have, and so I am much more likely to be able to emerge alive by the power of sheer improvisation if the situation were to, as we say, ‘go balls up.’ For myself…well, again, I am used to it. Working for W.A.R.D.E.N. is a good deal better than my old life, but in many ways not very different. And if I can make some truly evil bastards pay while I’m at it, as opposed to just those who happen to threaten the interests of some company that donates a lot of money to a number of U.S. senators, well…you would choose those jobs too, no?”

“I suppose I might,” says Surana. These are heavy thoughts. Better to look at the line of Zevran’s jaws, and the swirls of that illicit tattoo over skin.

“See something you like?” asks Zevran.

Surana snaps back to awareness with a start, almost spilling his drink. As it is, a few drops fly out the straw and land on the table. Oh well. It’s mostly ice water at this point, anyway.

“I got the tattoo when I was fourteen,” Zevran continues. “The Crows of the Apocalypse had puberty rites. Normally they are done at fifteen or sixteen, for boys, but nobody actually knew how old I was. They estimated high, since I was doing well in my training. It is supposed to be the mark of those whom Christ has bought, to prevent us from falling victim to the mark of the Antichrist. Sometimes, after having worked here for so many years, I wish some of them were still alive so I could tell them that the real mark of their Antichrist is no marks at all. W.A.R.D.E.N. wanted to remove the tattoo before they inducted me, but I pointed out that it was a large area and that bioskin is a thing. Eventually, they agreed to let me keep it. It does look sexy, after all.”

Surana chokes on his Americano-turned-icewater. “Why come on to me?” he asks, once he finishes coughing.

“Because you liked me before I tried to, Alim,” says Zevran, softly. “Do you know how I get close to a good half my targets? I seduce them. I do so because it works, because I have been trained how. You are quite attractive, but I must confess I was not directly interested, that first time. I was not trying to seduce you, or even, to the best of my memory, using those tricks without meaning to. And yet…I saw how you looked at me, today. I got a notification when you read my file, the other day. It is nice to know that someone is interested in _me_ , who I am or even how I look, without me having manipulated them into feeling that way. I like to be desired, for real.”

“You’re…right about that,” says Surana, softly.

Zevran’s apartment is in a pretty terrible part of town, an old public housing project—according to his cover identity, he is an Iraq veteran with too much PTSD to hold down a normal job. In some ways, Surana suspects, much of that is actually true. (Even the Iraq. Zevran had a couple of missions there, over the years.) After all, being W.A.R.D.E.N. hitman is not exactly a normal job. And for all that Surana lives in a normal suburban duplex under his own name and works a nine-to-five shift five days a week, being a W.A.R.D.E.N. research biochemist is not exactly a normal job, either. Normal jobs do not have the history of the world hinging on personal success. He only develops the compounds, but his kill count by proxy is probably higher than Zevran’s.

“Stand back,” says Zevran, after he unlocks the front door. Behind the regular Section 8 housing door is another door, a few feet down, and this one has biometric locks. “The area between here is trapped. Normally I don’t take anyone back here, but neither of us wants to brave Beltway traffic for a hookup, no?” Zevran presses various points on the walls and something whirrs. Then he presses his palm on the biometric door’s palm reader and peers into the retina scanner. “Safe now.” He beckons Surana to come in.

Inside, the apartment is a bit run down, much as the whole building is, but scrupulously clean. And, true to Zevran’s word, there are small metal figurines adorning all the bookshelves. There are, in fact, a surprising number of bookshelves, and the books in them all look well read. Glancing at the titles, Surana sees that some are about numismatics or figurine collecting, but many others are about science or history, or works of classic literature. Probably most of them were part of Zevran’s “schooling” in his early years at W.A.R.D.E.N., he realizes.

Of course, Zevran notices his glances. “I do like reading,” he remarks. “I know I’ll never have most of the experiences of a ‘normal person,’ but books are a close second, wouldn’t you say? There are so many ideas in the world. I especially like the ones that the Crows of the Apocalypse used to forbid.”

Zevran winks. At the same time, Alim notices the trashy erotica shelf, further into the room. And God, that is truly trashy erotica. He has read an alarming proportion of those titles himself.

“You’re a fan of David Holly? Huh. Wouldn’t have guessed.” That is actually one of the less trashy authors on the list, but definitely one of the kinkiest.

“What can I say? Tentacles are hot.”

And, yes…Zevran Arainai, tattooed sex god and honeypot operative, is actually blushing.

“Well, I’ve only got one ‘tentacle,’ but would you like it inside you?” jokes Alim—yes, leave last names outside the bedroom door, he thinks.

“Yes, I would definitely like that, so long as you do not call it that during sex,” says Zevran, already shrugging off his shirt. “Condoms are in the lower nightstand drawer. I’ve got like a million kinds, mostly left over from missions. Check the expiration dates.”

“‘Textured with realistic suckers’?” Alim reads off a condom wrapper, a minute or so later.

“Oh my God. That was for a target!”

“It’s expired,” lies Alim, and picks another.

**Author's Note:**

> You know what's cool about writing "real world" style AUs? I can just use names of things like coffee franchises and writers and I don't have to change any of it. (Yes, [David Holly is a real erotica writer](http://www.gaywriter.org/), and and actually pretty good. Weird, but good. At least, what little I've read, and by my standards.)
> 
> The tentacles are a reference to what I wrote for AU day last year--[Zevran as a broodmother](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7659631). (And I panicked over publishing that because I thought no one would want to be friends with me. A year and approximately 95k of darkspawn sex epic later, not to mention the holiday shockfics...you find out who your friends are, for sure, but there's a lot more of them who will stick by you than you thought. I was especially lucky, I think.)
> 
> I considered putting in a sex scene, but it's literally the most vanilla anal sex you could think of, probably, save for novelty condoms. Maybe a little hair pulling. I have three more fics to write for this fic week and then a normal chapter update for next week. I might add a sex chapter to this later if I'm bored.
> 
> And yes, "Blight Mark V" is fucking evil. I know.


End file.
